She looked at Blake with wet, horrified eyes, and he waited.
“I went back to bed—I’ll never forgive myself, but I wasn’t in my right senses yet. The fever kept coming back. I didn’t sleep very well, I -will say that for myself. Even when I didn’t know how bad it was I was worried. I dreamed I was running up the steps of a big building, a funny sort of building I hadn’t ever noticed before, and it had big pillars along the front. All the time I was running—I remember it as plain as you are sitting here now——”
And a lot plainer, Blake thought.
“I kept thinking I must hold on to myself and try to expect something nice that was waiting for me in the building. I can’t quite say what it was like. As if I was fooling myself in my dream and knew it. I kept running and running and feeling worse.”
She picked up another potato, but held it in her hand without beginning to peel it.
“Then they woke me up and said it was morning and time to go to hospital. I went over and hurried right up to her room. And there——” she paused and stared at the henhouse. Then she started again. “There was her bed and the mark of somebody, but she wasn’t there. My legs just gave out. I yelled, I guess, and a nurse came and I said ‘Where is Mamma?’ and the nurse said, ‘Well, miss, we’re crowded so we sent her away.’ I said, ‘Where to?’ Even then I didn’t understand. She looked at me queer and said, ‘To the morgue.’
“That’s how I was told.... Well, I started out and I met my brother Tom, and he said, 'Are you all right, Silvy?’
“I said, ‘Yes, I’m all right.’
“He said—he’s the sweetest thing in the world, Tom is, if he is my brother and I oughtn’t to say it—‘You sure you can walk?’
“I said, ‘Yes, I can walk. Where’s the morgue?’